Author Sumant Batra launched his bestseller Anarkali at The Astor Hotel Kolkata with a panel discussion moderated by writer and social activist Saira Shah Halim. The panelists included writer, editor and AKLF director Anjum Katyal, National Award-winning director and theatre personality Ashoke Viswanathan, and editor-in-chief of Om Books International, Shantanu Ray Chaudhuri.
Sumant Batra, an insolvency lawyer of global eminence and the founder of Kumaon Literary Festival, said, “In Anarkali, I have tried to piece together the puzzle that surrounds this woman whose silhouette is all that we have known, giving her an identity, a name, a family, and a life beyond the tragic love affair she has come to be identified with. What comes forth is a saga, fresh and compelling, reflecting the experience of a woman navigating social structures in the Mughal empire and bearing the consequences of asserting her desires. At the same time, it honours the romance that originally earned Anarkali her name in history and myth, inspiring within the narrative a treatise on a love earnest and pure, all-consuming and transcendental.”
Anarkali has been an unprecedented success, having become a national bestseller. The first print run of 3,000 copies of Anarkali was sold out within 45 days of the launch on December 9, 2023, by eminent filmmaker Vishal Bhardwaj who has offered to make a film on the book.